Project #6

You never know when it might all end. That thing about just walking across the street and getting hit by a bus — It really could happen.

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When I was in college, my girlfriend at the time, H.., told me that she was once digging around in her parent’s desk drawers, and she came across a letter that was addressed to her, so she opened it. It was a letter from her mother, and it was indeed for H., but it wasn’t supposed to be given to H. unless her mother had died. H. realized that after reading just the first sentence, but she kept reading. Of course.

I, of course, asked H. what the letter said. She told me. I wouldn’t even think of divulging the contents. That letter was for H., and H. only. I admit I felt a little strange asking, and then having her tell me what was in the letter, but it’s the kind of thing you open up about with a significant other in the middle of the night. I can say that when I asked H. how she responded to reading the letter, she said, simply: “I just started bawling.”

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A letter like that, it’s one of those things that’s hard just to think about, let alone actually writing up and then sealing in an envelope. Making a will is easy. But a letter, to be delivered in the event of your death, to the most important person in your life?

Still, if you sit down, with a pen in hand and paper in front of you, you can do it. So get your affairs in order.